Roderick

It's easiest to answer that with regards to Def vs. Resistance. One point of defense mitigates the same amount of damage as 2 points of resistance, but only when both actually apply to the attack. For example, a tank capped at 90% smashing resist is going to take full damage from the energy portion of an energy blast and 10% of the smashing portion. He'll take full damage from most electric blasts. The character with 45% ranged OR energy defense will only be hit 5% of the time from those same attacks though, and therefore will average 5% of the damage at all times.

And of course that ignores the fact that no amount of damage resistance will ever stop debuffs or mezzes, while an attack that misses won't do any damage or secondary effects.

Other forms of mitigation, such as regeneration, knockdown, or holds are nearly impossible to gauge a "relative equivalency" to defense, because there are too many variables, and changing the accuracy or recharge of an AoE hold (for example) can drastically change how effective it is at stopping damage.

When the Alpha Slot was being tested in Issue 18, things the devs said made it sound like the Alpha Slot was supposed to turn off if you exemplar at all, and that having it work at lower levels was a bug. I wasn't in Issue 19 beta and haven't seen anything about it in patch notes or forum discussions, so I can't confirm or deny that they still hold that stance.

I personally assume that it's going to disappear if I exemplar at all, and if I keep it, it's a bonus - I never plan a build around keeping it at anything other than 50.

Jacktar is correct, however, since you already asked here....

Stone Melee has great Single Target damage, but it's a bit endurance heavy, and only has one AoE (two if you count the one that just knocks enemies down without damaging them).

Mace and Axe both have a mix of ST and AoE attacks. None of the AoEs in either are singularly impressive, but they're still good attacks.

Electric Melee is about half AoE. Jacob's Ladder and Chain Induction are kinda "meh" on the AoE damage, but not bad. Thunder Strike is pretty good, even if it is kinda slow. Lightning Rod is amazing. One thing to remember is that LR summons a pseudopet to deal its damage, and pets have a +300% damage cap, not the +650% of normal brute attacks. That means that normal (97%-ish) slotting, a high Fury bar (+120-150%) and Build Up (+80%) will put you at or above the damage cap for that power - don't go overboard on extra buffs before using it, they may well be wasted.

Good secondaries for a high DPS/AoE brute are Fire or Shields. Fire has Fiery Embrace, which adds fire damage to all your attacks for a short while, Burn, which drops a flaming patch at your feet, damaging foes near you (also a pseudopet, see the note above), and Blazing Aura, a damage aura which harms all enemies near you. Shields has Against All Odds, a taunt aura that debuffs nearby enemies' damage, and gives you +damage for each enemy in melee range, and Shield Charge, a slightly weaker version of Lightning Rod.

Dark Armor and Electric Armor also have damage auras, but aren't quite as offensively oriented as Fiery Aura is. Dark has a couple toggles which can Stun or Fear nearby enemies helping keep you upright, and Electric has Lightning Reflexes, which allows you to attack and run faster, allowing you to build Fury faster, and lose less Fury traveling between mobs.

Ultimately, you're better off picking something you'll like, and asking for help with those specific powersets - there's too many options otherwise.

If you're willing to sink some money into the brute to put together a solid build, consider Super Strength/Fire. It may not seem that great at a first glance, but running Rage, Fiery Embrace and Blazing Aura while spamming Burn and Foot Stomp as often as possible is a beautiful thing. And then when you get low on endurance, you hit Consume - and deal more AoE damage to refill your end bar!

I am 100% behind having the ability to mail a stack of items at once. Not so keen on the rest of the idea. Though the global storage might be a good idea if it were a bit smaller than the suggested 100 (25, maybe), and in addition to regular vault storage.

And this seems to be a good time to bring up my personal wish: Get rid on the Enhancement Tray and replace it with an Enhancement Window, like the one for salvage. Keep it at a limit of 10 enhancements, but allow identical enhancements to stack in the window, and allow them to trade and be transfered to the market in stacks, just like salvage and recipes can!

My first character, and first 50, took about 9 months. I spent a lot of time exploring the game and doing things that don't earn XP, but I also did a lot of TFs. A friend did PL me from 32-35, but that was back before XP smoothing, when that range was one of the slowest level ranges.

I have characters roughly the same age (3+ years old now) that have never hit 50. My main and namesake took about 6 months to go to 50 in his original build as a BS/WP scrapper. After shields were released, I rerolled him, and had him 50 in under a month - no PLing involved, but a LOT of TFs run.

Most of my characters take 2-3 months to get to 50 if I get hooked on them. That's really only about half that time on the specific character at most though - I alt a lot.

I did take one character 1-50, solo, in 6 hours during the monkey fiasco in AE. He's deleted now, it was mostly done just to see how bad the bug actually was.

However, Vigilantes or Rogues who reaffirm their current alignment still get 30 Reward Merits the first time, and 60 each time afterwards, so they don't go completely without rewards.

No merits of any sort are awarded during an alignment change, however - the alignment change is the reward in that case.

1- With most characters, I take the better of the two attacks available at level 1. On blasters, I take both, but that's mostly because of Defiance letting me fire them when mezzed - which doesn't apply to corruptors. For a corruptor (specifically, Ice Blast), is it worth it to take both?

2- When looking at corruptor attacks in Mids', does it show the regular damage of the attacks, or does it factor in an "average value" for Scourge, like it does for scrappers and Crits?

Thanks in advance!

For one of the upcoming vet rewards, give us a special contact who (like the Message Man in Praetoria) doesn't actually exist in the game world, but we have their phone number and can call them. This contact wouldn't give missions, but would instead allow you to adjust your Notoriety without having to go to a 4XP or SRSLY rep in person.

On my SS/SR brute, she destroyed me when I went toe-to-toe with her. On the second try, I just stayed at range and threw [Gloom] and [Dark Obliteration] at her over and over. She died pretty quick.

Because freespecs are there so that you can make changes to your character based on recent changes to the game. If you don't need to make changes to your character, you still get the freespec. If you don't use it, then you obviously didn't need it, so.... Why would you complain if it doesn't stack?

If you don't respec often, why does it matter if you lose a freespec you weren't going to use anyways?

Sounds like 20+ for Lady Winter then, because neither a 16 nor an 18 was offered it

Alignment tips and Morality tips are separate things. You can have up to three Alignment Tips and still get Morality tips. In fact, if you qualify for multiple Morality missions (such as having multiple bars full), it's possible to get more than one Morality Tip at a time.

Your best bet on a blapper is to softcap Smashing/Lethal defense, or if you can, Smashing/Lethal/Energy. While resistance helps, you don't have enough HP, or enough sources of +resist (usually only Tough and an Epic armor).

Energy Manipulation is a great start. It will be very expensive to do this via the markets, but A-Merits will make things much more affordable. Grab 4 or 5 sets of Kinetic Combat (four pieces only, I suggest the four "regular" parts and skip the proc) and put them in each of your single target melee attacks, and one in Boxing, Kick or Brawl, if you need it. Go with Cold Mastery or Mace Mastery and pick up the +Def shield. Get the Fighting Pool, and put the Steadfast Protection Res/Def in Tough (Put the -KB there too for a small recovery buff!). If you want to get Energy Defense, choose Mace Mastery (Ice Armor has no Energy Def), and slot Red Fortunes and/or Thunderstrikes. And get Combat Jumping, even if you don't plan on taking Super Jump. Not only does it provide a bit of a +Def boost, it adds mid-jump maneuverability, and combined with Hurdle (which is free now), gets you a significat amount of non-suppressing movement for when you have an enemy that you REALLY don't want to stand beside.

And keep in mind, most blappers WILL feel squishy until you get a well-rounded set of defenses. There's not much you can do about it.

This is a fairly quick build, using Energy/Energy with Super Speed and Mace Mastery. It has 45.6% Smashing/Lethal defence and 42.6% Energy defence, and decent - but not great - recharge. Don't take the build as gospel though, play around with it, and tweak it to YOUR needs. This is just a starting point for you.